How Likely Is It That I'll Be Able To Get One Of These?

[sabrecheeky]

Hello!

This 'pandora' business is all very exciting. I've quietly lurked round this scene for years, and this machine looks a great prospect - the possibilities are mouthwatering... a clone of my Amiga A1200 in my hand? Proper Linux environment? PSX? Drool...

But...

How many of these things are actually going to be made? From what I can gather from here and elsewhere, it seems a bit like a cottage industry in the way it is being produced. Absolutely nothing wrong with that - but will there be enough produced quickly enough to satisfy demand? I've heard talk of a 'factory' - these aren't a simple or quick thing to set up...

In terms of this scene, I'm a casual gamer. I'll be near the bottom of any waiting list. I remember waiting in 1982 for an Issue 1 ZXSpectrum to come from Sinclair Research... ages... Sinclair became famous for how bad its logistics were! Lots of people are going to want one of these things when it is released. Are the powers that be going to be ready...?

I so hope so...

 

[Prophet]

We can all only hope for the best and be patient.

Welcome to the forums.

 

[Chip]

I remember waiting in 1982 for an Issue 1 ZXSpectrum to come from Sinclair Research... ages... Sinclair became famous for how bad its logistics were! Lots of people are going to want one of these things when it is released.

Luckily, things have come a long way since 1982

Craigix isn't saying exactly where, but Pandora is being manufactured at a real factory somewhere in China. There will be three thousand units in the first full production run, and if they sell well then you can certainly expect future runs.

Since you're a Speccy fan, I'm guessing you're probably in the UK. That's good, because that is where Craigix (one of the main guys behind the project) is. You can be sure that whatever else happens, Craig's shop will have units in stock.

 

[sabrecheeky]

Yes, I'm in the UK... and love my speccy... looking forward to a pandora emu even better than GP2xspectrum with the keyboard... yummy!

And have bought quite a few things from CraigX's gbax.com shop, and have always found the service top.

It is reassuring to know that the manufacturing details seem sorted out - I had this image of a converted garage somewhere in the midlands building this machine, like a great british sports car... built wonderfully, but only making about five a year...

I'll look out for the pre-order options...

Thanks again for the info!

 

[Tobriand]

The answer is probably. It depends on just how many people there are waiting to pre-order the moment it turns up on the market, how many wait for official release, and how far beyond this community Pandora ends up reaching.

All of those, at the moment, are unknowns, although I would hazard a guess that 3000 was chosen based on:
- Early GP2x sales within a period that would allow re-commencing production if demand looks to exceed supply. So if it took 6 weeks to sell 3000 GP2xs, and 2000 Pandoras go in the first week, then they'll know to continue production of a larger batch, whereas if the figures sold are approximately the same, then they'll probably produce at about the same rate GPH did.
- How many they can afford to make
- How long it'll take to source 3000 of each part.

At a guess.

 

[Chip]

It is reassuring to know that the manufacturing details seem sorted out - I had this image of a converted garage somewhere in the midlands building this machine, like a great british sports car... built wonderfully, but only making about five a year...

I work with a few low volume manufacturers, and I can assure you that low volume does NOT necessarily mean slow or unprofessional. I've been to a "factory" in Canada where they can churn out a couple hundred HVAC controllers (5 layer PCBs with several hundred components) per day with a few dozen employees in a surprisingly small office building. I've been to larger factories in the US where they make controllers, actuators, valves, sensors, and other HVAC components, all in a building not much bigger than an average Wal-Mart. This includes a machine shop for cutting their own gears and making their own assembly line equipment, and an injection molding setup for all the plastic casings.

People have a tendancy to think of mile-long automobile assembly lines or Chinese "Ipod Cities", but there is an awful lot of small scale manufacturing out there. The North American facilities I've been to were designed around specific products, but there are plenty of assembly lines for hire. You can't swing a dead cat in south east Aisa without hitting half a dozen small factories who would be more then happy to make a couple thousand of anything for a reasonable price.

Don't believe me? go over to Alibaba.com and search for "mp3 player" or "portable mp4 player". Do you think they're making millions of those crappy PSP and Ipod knockoffs? Nope. And I'm sure any one of them would gladly take a break from churning out $25 "Appel Iprods" to make your (slightly more original) handheld device. For a small fee, of course.

 

[sabrecheeky]

Thanks again, I'm no manufacturing expert, I worked in a moulding shop for a while, and various computer and component assembly plants during my youth... Oh the fun.

I'm sure it has all been taken care of, I just couldn't find any 'news' or threads about the progress of getting the device manufactured here. I suppose it is not very interesting compared to the design phase, or speculating about such far away things as dreamcast or psp emulation , but info like this helps keep concerns about it turning out to be vapourware at bay.

 

[Jon Grant]

Sinclair where known as "a legend in their own 14 day delivery promise"

I had em all from the Z80 kit to the 48K Speccy, great times, but it`s hardly fair to imply Craig will have slow delivery just because he`s a small manufacturer, after all Nintendo, Microsoft, Asus and other "big" manufactures are bad if not worse when it comes to meeting demand (still limited stocks of Wii after 2 years <_< )

 

[God Ginrai]

It is reassuring to know that the manufacturing details seem sorted out - I had this image of a converted garage somewhere in the midlands building this machine, like a great british sports car... built wonderfully, but only making about five a year...

I work with a few low volume manufacturers, and I can assure you that low volume does NOT necessarily mean slow or unprofessional. I've been to a "factory" in Canada where they can churn out a couple hundred HVAC controllers (5 layer PCBs with several hundred components) per day with a few dozen employees in a surprisingly small office building. I've been to larger factories in the US where they make controllers, actuators, valves, sensors, and other HVAC components, all in a building not much bigger than an average Wal-Mart. This includes a machine shop for cutting their own gears and making their own assembly line equipment, and an injection molding setup for all the plastic casings.

People have a tendancy to think of mile-long automobile assembly lines or Chinese "Ipod Cities", but there is an awful lot of small scale manufacturing out there. The North American facilities I've been to were designed around specific products, but there are plenty of assembly lines for hire. You can't swing a dead cat in south east Aisa without hitting half a dozen small factories who would be more then happy to make a couple thousand of anything for a reasonable price.

Don't believe me? go over to Alibaba.com and search for "mp3 player" or "portable mp4 player". Do you think they're making millions of those crappy PSP and Ipod knockoffs? Nope. And I'm sure any one of them would gladly take a break from churning out $25 "Appel Iprods" to make your (slightly more original) handheld device. For a small fee, of course.


Ummm... Chip? I'm pretty sure that he said that the low volume was produced well. That's why he said: "built wonderfully" What he was concerned with was not the quality, but if there would be enough to satisfy demand.

-God Ginrai

 

[Chip]

Ummm... Chip? I'm pretty sure that he said that the low volume was produced well. That's why he said: "built wonderfully" What he was concerned with was not the quality, but if there would be enough to satisfy demand.

That's why I said "low volume does NOT necessarily mean slow or unprofessional". I wanted to cover both bases before somebody decided to make the argument in the other direction. I didn't want people to get the impression that a small run meant that the product was either being slowly made by hand (like a boutique car shop) or was being hastily thrown together by child labor in somebody's garage. I was trying to establish that in my experience, small factories are capable of both speed and quality, and that (assuming Craig has done his homework) we shouldn't worry.

 

[God Ginrai]

Ummm... Chip? I'm pretty sure that he said that the low volume was produced well. That's why he said: "built wonderfully" What he was concerned with was not the quality, but if there would be enough to satisfy demand.

That's why I said "low volume does NOT necessarily mean slow or unprofessional". I wanted to cover both bases before somebody decided to make the argument in the other direction. I didn't want people to get the impression that a small run meant that the product was either being slowly made by hand (like a boutique car shop) or was being hastily thrown together by child labor in somebody's garage. I was trying to establish that in my experience, small factories are capable of both speed and quality, and that (assuming Craig has done his homework) we shouldn't worry.


I see I made a mistake by reading slow as the item being inefficient, not the process.

But still, by using unprofessional in the same sentence seemed like an accusation that he had claimed the pandora as something unprofessional. It is not always wise to cover both bases if it looks like you ran from first to third to everyone else.

-God Ginrai